FITTING THE BILL : Low-Key Russell Is Doing It His Way as Dodger Manager

Bill Russell and his fiancee, Susan Giarratano, slipped through the back door of Tom Lasorda’s favorite restaurant in downtown Los Angeles on Monday afternoon. They took a corner table, sat with their backs to the crowd and ate in peace.

Russell, wearing jeans and a polo shirt, blended in with everyone else. Few recognized him. No one asked for an autograph. No one even stopped by to wish him luck.

He has perhaps the most glamorous job in baseball. He manages the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yet on the eve of the first round of the National League playoffs against the Atlanta Braves, he can walk into this popular restaurant and be left alone.

It sure would be different if ol’ Tommy Lasorda still were managing.

Lasorda would have walked through the front door at Paul’s Kitchen, said hello to everyone on his way through, plopped down in a booth where everyone could see him, signed autographs, posed for pictures, kissed babies, and yelled out for everyone to pray for the Dodgers when he left.

If the Dodgers want another good-will ambassador, and if Dodger fans want a celebrity running their team, they got the wrong guy.

William Ellis Russell is not going to change for anybody.

“I don’t like the limelight,” said Russell, the third of five children born to Warren and Fern Russell in Pittsburg, Kan. “I really don’t. Believe me, managing the Dodgers, I understand what’s expected of me. I understand that when you put this Dodger uniform on, you’re expected to win.

“But I’m not going to change my personality.

“It’s the players’ show, not mine. They should be in the forefront, not me. Fans don’t come out to see me, they come out to see the players.

“This is their team. I just happen to be running it.”

This is the guy fans booed for his wild throws in his first few years as the shortstop, in the days of Garvey, Lopes and Cey, but when the Dodgers asked if he wanted to move to center field, he declined, refusing to quit.

This is the guy who was told by associates that if he ever wanted to be seriously considered for the Dodger managerial job, he had better cut his ties to Lasorda, or at least keep his distance. Russell refused, staying loyal to the man who was like a second father.

This is the guy who heard over the winter that his divorce from his wife of 28 years could be devastating to his managerial hopes. Russell wondered why anyone should care, saying that he should be judged solely on his professional performance.

This is the guy who was told that he might be making a mistake if he followed through with his threat to bench his star right fielder, Raul Mondesi, for showing up late. After all, Mondesi was never benched by Lasorda. Russell warned him once, and the second time, Mondesi was sitting next to him on the bench.

This is the guy who took over a team that was only six games over .500 in late June, not knowing whether he would be managing for a day, a week, or the rest of the season. He led it to the playoffs, winning 24 of the last 35 games in one of the best finishes since the club moved to Los Angeles.

This is the guy who worries about Lasorda, knowing how badly he wants to return to the field as manager of the Dodgers, but is saddened that his close relationship with Lasorda has become strained.

This is a guy who has occupied the manager’s office for half a season, but yet has not decorated his office with a single personal memento, and still has no idea where he stashed a lineup card from his first victory as Dodger manager.

This also is the guy who would rather eat a barbecued beef sandwich than escargot, prefers beer to champagne, jeans to Armani suits, and is more comfortable going out bowling with the Dodger trainers and clubhouse attendants than schmoozing at a cocktail party with a roomful of corporate executives.

Russell, who will turn 48 in three weeks, is as genuine a person as you will find.

“He’s so well balanced, and he has that great sense of humor,” said Giarratano, who met Russell after he retired as a player. “Boy, can he needle. He’s Mr. Agitator, but he knows when to stop.”

And it is Russell, the Dodger players will all tell you, who is responsible, more than anyone else, for having them in the playoffs, believing they can beat the Braves and go on and win the World Series.

“He’s had a huge impact,” veteran third baseman Tim Wallach said. “I’ve never been on a team that played with this much confidence and this much intensity, and played the game right. You can see the difference he has made. Fundamentally, it’s not even close to the team we had last year. We are so much better.

“You see what’s happening. Offensively, we’re putting pressure on teams every inning. We’re hitting and running. We’re stealing bases. We’re squeezing. We manufacture runs, and we put teams on the defensive.

“I’ve never had so much fun playing baseball.”

Said center fielder Brett Butler, “This is not a cut to Tommy, but Billy has made the players so much at ease. Everything’s been so positive. And this team responds much better to the positive than the negative.

“I’m not going to say there was a fear playing under Tommy, but more like an anxiety level. You were afraid to fail. Billy does not put players in a position to fail.

“Believe me, in a short time here, he’s gained a lot of respect. He doesn’t play favorites. He treats you the way he’d want to be treated.

“You can walk around this clubhouse, and I don’t think there’s anybody in this room who’s not happy with Billy Russell as manager.”

*

It is the seventh inning of a tie game Saturday afternoon against the San Diego Padres. Lasorda leans out from his box and waves to the crowd. Soon, the entire section below is chanting, “Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!”

Several players look out from the dugout, see it is Lasorda at the heart of the noise, and shake their heads, realizing that Lasorda cannot fade into the background.

Lasorda rarely comes onto the field and never into the clubhouse, but he has let it be known that he would love to be back managing.

“I have to tell you,” Lasorda said, “I miss managing a great deal. This is what I do. This is what I love. It’s tough on me. I loved every single day of it, and it would be great to be out there.”

It is Lasorda’s passion for managing the game that has made these last couple of months so difficult, watching his team go on without him. The Dodgers and Braves are meeting in the playoffs for the first time and Lasorda won’t be part of it.

*

“I know this is tough on him, it’s only natural,” Russell said. “This is his team. He started it. I just took over for him to try to keep it going.

“But I know he feels good, and deep inside, he feels he should be out there running it.”

Lasorda, whose phone started ringing again Monday, with reporters asking whether he has interest in filling the vacant Philadelphia Phillie and Boston Red Sox managerial openings, said that he would listen to all offers. He strongly would consider managing again, and if Dodger President Peter O’Malley wanted him to manage again, there would be no hesitation.

That call will never come.

The Dodgers have already decided to offer Russell a one-year contract extension when the season ends.

“I think Billy’s done a fine job,” owner Peter O’Malley said. “I’m proud of the job Billy and the coaches have done. We have looked at Billy and others at some time to eventually succeed Tommy.”

Yet, there have been times when Russell couldn’t help but wonder if he would ever get the job.

Russell signed with the organization in 1966 for $14,000. He thought he would be released in 1969, until Lasorda told him he would be safe as long as Lasorda managed. Russell spent 2,181 games in a Dodger uniform.

Russell might have spent another year or two in the big leagues, but when the Dodgers offered him a big-league coaching job, he accepted after the 1986 season. They offered him the managing job at triple-A Albuquerque in 1988, but he refused, saying he wasn’t ready. He finally took it in 1991, spent two years there, then returned, eagerly awaiting his opportunity.

But it was becoming more evident by the year that Lasorda had no plans to retire. Russell was willing to wait.

The doubts whether it would ever happen crept in last winter. The Dodgers hired Phil Regan as their triple-A Albuquerque manager. Russell and his wife split up. And still, he remained closer than ever to Lasorda.

“Sure, I heard those things,” Russell said. “But what was I going to do? You have to understand, I wouldn’t be here without Tommy. He raised me like a son. I was just doing my job.

“Same thing with my divorce. I heard things. But gosh, I felt like that shouldn’t come into effect.”

Russell will never know just what would have happened if Lasorda had not checked into Centinela Hospital Medical Center the morning of June 24 because of abdominal pains, only to learn that he had suffered a mild heart attack.

Russell managed for the next month, believing that Lasorda would be back. It was only when he got a late-night phone call from a reporter on the eve of Lasorda’s July 29 retirement announcement that he knew he would be managing the rest of the season.

If Lasorda had stayed the entire season, and then retired, who knows if Russell would have been given the opportunity.

“It was such a blur,” Russell said. “It went from being told they’re running tests on Tommy and he’ll miss a game to finding out he had a heart attack, to them saying, ‘It’s your job.’

“I’ll be honest, I was nervous. But my personality wouldn’t show that. I knew I had a short time to show them I could do the job.”

Russell not only survived, but thrived. The players, so used to hearing Lasorda scream when things went wrong, immediately adapted to Russell’s quiet demeanor. Players relaxed. Not every game was treated like the seventh game of the World Series. And the Dodgers started playing their finest baseball of the season.

“He’s handled this in kind of a fearless way, a calm way,” said Fred Claire, Dodger executive vice president. “I think that’s been the most impressive thing about Billy. You know he’s going to do it in his style.

“There are a lot of things that have happened, and he’s handled it very well. It really is much like Bill as a player. He never called attention to himself. He had the ability to get along with all of his teammates, but when something needed to be said, he said it. That’s what he’s all about.

“It’s obviously worked well, because the team has responded well. He deserves a lot of credit. All I know is that there are only eight teams left playing baseball, and he’s the manager of one of them.”